Jack and Diane
by etherealle
Summary: Slightly AU: Buffy tries to find her way in a world much larger than she imagined and finally experiences normalcy, only to find that it's not all it's cracked up to be. A certain someone helps her adjust.


/Oh yeah life goes on

Long after the thrill of living is gone/

"Tell me, Miss Summers, if we pay you this much to sleep on the job, how much do you think we'll pay if you actually worked?"

Buffy's eyes flew open instantly. Startled, she flung her arm across her desk, succeeding in not only sending her coffee cup to a shattering demise on the linoleum but also spraying her boss with 7-Eleven's finest. She lowered her eyes to the mess on the floor and then raised them to meet his. "Good morning?" she offered.

He wasn't amused. "Reports. My desk. Lunchtime. Otherwise, your complimentary LAPD mug and you will have something in common." He raised his thick caterpillar eyebrows at her and stalked away. Buffy groaned and dropped her forehead to the blotter on her desk. Around her, it was like Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, and the Gulf War all rolled into one – phones blaring for attention, belligerent traffic violators demanding to be let go, and at least twenty people per second rushing past her desk in search of papers, a person, or coffee. For her to have dropped off among this mayhem spoke of how exhausted she really was. She glanced at the clock on the wall. 9:06. Just under three hours to attempt to regurgitate information she hadn't touched in a week. Great.

And on top of that…it was only Monday.

I love my job, she said to herself. I love my job, I love my job, I love my job…

A little past twelve, Buffy handed the reports to the sour-faced secretary outside John De Luca's office. Utterly and totally relieved, she skipped out the front door of the station and across the street to the bagel and coffee shop. She entered the tiny café and waved to the two fat Italian men who ran the place during the day.

"Same as always, Summers?" asked the shorter of the two with a thick but endearing accent.

"You know me too well." She smiled. "Small coffee, no cream, two sugars, everything bagel with veggie cream cheese." She dropped a five on the counter and moved away to allow the next customer to order. When hers was ready, she plucked the brown paper bag up and headed out the door into the bright California sunshine. The people waiting at the crosswalk – a mix of white collars, college kids, and dog walkers – stood a little straighter when she joined them at the corner. Buffy Summers wasn't the best detective, nor the most intimidating, but she wanted to be – and that is what distinguished her from the herd of cadets vying for a place in the prestigious Los Angeles Police Department. In the few months she had been investigating for the city, she had created quite a name for herself, despite the exhausting hours and intensity of the work. For Buffy, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. Stopping meant thinking. And thinking meant accepting.

She wasn't quite ready for that yet.

Suddenly, a man emerged from the crowd of crosswalkers with a hideously pink purse in his hand. He sprinted across the street, barely avoiding getting smashed by a cab. A short Asian woman screamed after him, "Thief! Thief! He have my purse!" Buffy dropped her lunch on the ground and immediately raced after him. She jumped on top of the cab's hood and used the height to leap to another car next to it. She bounded over the garbage can on the curb and dashed in his direction. The thief wove in and out of the maze of pedestrians, ducking under awnings and swerving around lampposts trying to shake her. Buffy panted as she tried to keep her eye on the young man. Confused people walking in her direction smacked into her as she did her best to stay on his trail. Finally, six blocks from where they started, the man turned a quick left into an alley. Buffy upped her speed just a little more as she followed him. To a bystander, she was blonde, slender, black-leather-jacketed blur. In fact, she was running so fast that she didn't even see the tall, handsome man holding the kid by his collar and crashed right into them.

"Ow!" She fell back onto her butt and about to rebound instantly on her feet when she noticed that the kid didn't need to be chased further. The man glared at the boy, nearly unaware of Buffy. Buffy, however, became acutely, sharply aware of the man when she laid eyes on his face.

"Now, I have to ask, why would you choose this particular purse when there are so many others to pick from? Because I'll tell you, pink does nothing for your outfit." He was looking pretty satisfied with himself until he met eyes with the blonde, attractive young lady on the ground. His smug expression faded. They both froze.

"Riley?"

"Buffy?"

They stayed like that for about twenty seconds, until the teenager whose collar Riley was firmly gripping started to squirm. "What the hell, man? You ain't no cop! Let me go!"

His words shocked them back to reality. Buffy was the first to break their gaze. "No, but I am. Buffy Summers, LAPD." She quickly flashed a badge and grabbed the kid by the arm. A squad car pulled into the space behind them. "He's totally right. You should aim for a more earthy tone. Goes better with delinquent skin types." An officer emerged out of the car and Buffy handed the wriggling boy to the hulky policeman, who started reciting the boy's rights. She watched him stash the kid in his backseat and drive away before turning back to Riley. _The_ Riley. The Riley whom she hadn't seen for nearly four years. The Riley who was now slightly taller, much tanner, and a bit heavier than she recalled.

The Riley who, as she so clearly remembered, had a wife.

Riley couldn't stop staring. He knew it was uncomfortable, and probably more than a little inappropriate, but stopping a bullet with his teeth would have been easier than tearing his eyes away. He couldn't believe she was standing in front of him, here, at this exact moment. For a second it flashed in his mind that he had mistaken someone else for her - that this was some hallucination…but it wasn't, and he knew it. He would know this girl anywhere. If she was swinging from the trapeze in a circus troupe he'd recognize her, stage makeup and all.

Not that she hadn't changed at all. The woman standing before him was exactly that – a woman. Still thin, still blonde, and still heartbreakingly beautiful, but…older. Mature. Like she had grown into herself.

Riley suddenly became intensely aware of his own body. Heart beating – no, pounding, 'jack-hammering' might even be an accurate representation – breathing shallow but steady, eyes glued to hers.

Talk, Finn, he coached himself. Talking is good. It may lead to…words.

"Hi." It was a start.

"Hi." Her voice was the same. A fraction lower, perhaps, but the same voice he'd dreamed about, thought of, imagined for years. A smile crept onto her face. "What are you doing here? I thought you'd be happily established in a fabulous grass hut somewhere in the southern hemisphere."

"No. Uh, I live here now."

"Oh." I? As in, singular I? Something in her brightened despite her instinctive urge not to. "Whereabouts?"

"Here." She looked confused. "I mean-" He pointed to the high-rise next to them. "This is my apartment building."

"Gotcha." She smiled sheepishly. "You know, this whole cop thing…it's not what it looks like. Really."

"Okay, so you're really working for the Los Angeles…Puppy Defenders, so the badge was just a shiny coin conglomeration that you use to scare teenage purse-snatchers into submission, just for the fun of it. Good to know I'm just jumping to conclusions again."

"Actually, no. I am working for the…puppy defenders. Jump all you want." She smiled, and his heart did the butterfly stroke. "I just mean I'm not an actual officer. I do detective, investigative, 'Law and Order' stuff. Lots of blood and corpses. Right up my alley, if you ask me."

He nodded. "You do have some experience with the post-life part of…life." It would have been so much easier if she'd just gotten uglier over the years. If her hair fell out in big honking clumps and she didn't have any teeth and her features rearranged themselves in new and interesting ways. Then maybe this conversation would actually have involved some participation from Riley's brain cells.

As it was, though, his neurons took an inconveniently abrupt vacation. Somewhere tropical and sunny, leaving poor Riley to operate sans cerebral cortex.

Buffy glanced at her watch. "I really have to be getting back to the station. Funny thing about lunch breaks is that they actually expect you to come back after. It was really good seeing you, maybe I'll-" She started to turn away.

"Wait." He grabbed her arm. She looked up at him questioningly. "Would you want to stop by later on today? Catch up on things?" Did he just say that? He looked around him. Nope, nobody else but the two of them. Those words did actually exit from his own mouth. The world slowed to an aching halt while he waited for her answer.

She thought about it, tilted her head a little, and cracked a half-smile. "Sure. Seven?"

"I'll be here. Just buzz me to come up." She nodded and started on her way.

Twenty minutes later, Buffy stood in front of a one-way glass window with her boss, staring in at a man seated at a metal table. The man, thirty-seven-year-old Richard Lombardi, was being held for questioning in the death of his infant daughter, Emily. The death was first attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but then some things didn't appear to add up to an accident.

"You gonna go in there and talk to him? Wouldn't hurt." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Are you okay, Summers?"

Buffy turned her head to study his face. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he spun her head yet again. "Yeah. I'm fine. I just need some coffee." She smiled quickly and gestured to the room. "I'll be out in a few." She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Inside, the slight man started at the sound. The dank lighting of the single bulb hanging in the center of the room cast a sickening, queasy glow over the room and made him look even more gaunt. Buffy slowly crossed the room to the chair opposite the man. "Hi, Mr. Lombardi. I'm Detective Buffy Summers. Do you mind if we talk for a minute?"

"S-sure." She sat down. "Look, I-I don't have a lawyer yet-"

"Don't worry about that," she interjected. "I'm not here to interrogate you. I just want to ask you some questions." Even she knew how lame that sounded.

Her subject didn't seem to notice the nuance, however. "I've been in here for four hours. I don't think there's anything I haven't been asked yet." His hands, small and pale and clammy, shook violently. Buffy took in his appearance. Green flannel shirt, blue jeans, glasses. Beady blue eyes behind them. His face was weary, tired, and more than a little scared. Fear. Now that was something she had some experience with. She leaned back in the chair and tried her best to look nonchalant.

"So, can you tell me what happened, Mr. Lombardi?"

His fingers absently played with the skin on the back of his left hand. "Well, uh, it was a couple nights ago. I-I had just gotten home from work. The babysitter had left a little early because Emily was sleeping, and I got home a little later than I expected. Uh, I went into her room to check on her, and she seemed fine, so I went into the kitchen to make something to eat." His eyes widened, welling with tears. "I came back into the room a few minutes later, and…and she was dead…" The tears overflowed and he broke down in front of her, sobbing. "I don't know what happened…"

Buffy was as still as a stone. "Mr. Lombardi, do you realize that Emily had been dead for three days before the police were called? Why didn't you call 911 as soon as you knew something was wrong?"

"I-I don't know. I didn't know what to do. She was dead! It didn't matter who I called, she was dead," he moaned. "Somebody killed my baby!" he wailed. The sobbing continued as the man dropped his forehead to the table.

Buffy mulled this over for a moment, then got up and left the room.

Buffy stood in De Luca's office with her arms crossed over her chest. The look on her face said one thing: resolve. "A dead infant, a grieving father, a sketchy babysitter – looks like we finally got handed an easy one," she drawled.

"Don't be so sure." He handed her a thick sheaf of papers. "We just got information about a debt that Mr. Lombardi owes to a Raymond Schiffler. We're not sure about the money – family says Lombardi wasn't a gambler and took good care of the money he does have. There's an address on top there. It's the last place of residence known for Schiffler. Go check it out. I'm not saying he's got anything to do with this, but the defense will be all over us if we don't explore every avenue."

Buffy nodded and glanced at the address. "Redding Place? Sounds pretty ritzy."

"It is," he confirmed. "Also very highly guarded, if you catch what I'm saying." Their eyes met in silent understanding. When he spoke again, it was slow and calculated, every word echoing with meaning. "A police presence might disturb the residents. They're…touchy." He patted her on the shoulder. "I do happen to know that tomorrow night, however, a certain security guard leaves around eight o'clock to meet his girlfriend in the basement of the building. A perfect window of time for someone who'd want to…take a tour." He winked. "Have a good weekend, Miss Summers."

Buffy sighed.

The remainder of Buffy's work day went by surprisingly fast. She checked out a couple cases on the southern end of the city and spent an hour with the other investigators discussing a murder case from the previous week. But when five o'clock arrived, Buffy felt like there should have been a drumroll and large bells rung. Two hours. Two hours till…what? She didn't know. She briefly, but only briefly, considered just calling the whole thing off, but then she remembered that she didn't have Riley's phone number. Canceling their impromptu get-together would simply equate with her not showing up.

She could do that. But the curiosity was killing her. Why was Riley in L.A.? What happened to the top-secret military operation? Was there something dangerous here that she needed to know about? And, in an unnerving way, the most nagging question on her mind was…where was Sam?

She would only stay a little while, she promised herself. She had been successful for a long time in tucking Riley into a place where she could reflect on him and not be struck with pangs of regret. Her last memory of him – how he had pulled her from the dark place with his admiration of her – was poignant and nuanced, and brought a smile to her face when she dug it up every so often. She would only stay a little while.

So Buffy trudged back to her apartment three blocks from the station, wondering the entire time what she would wear. What does one don when shooting the shit with a handsome ex-boyfriend that had suddenly disappeared into the night in a helicopter only to reappear a year later on another secret military mission taller and handsomer and who was, among other things, married?

Standing in front of her expansive closet, she scanned for something that would say, "I'm totally only wearing this because I don't care what you think of me because I'm liberated and independent and don't even think for one second that I've given any thought to you whatsoever in the last four years, buddy!" Yes. That is exactly the message she needed to convey.

So, a habit. Complete with veil and monastic humility.

Buffy sighed. She plucked a pair of jeans and a deep maroon-colored sweater from the legions of clothing and quickly changed into them. The full-length mirror behind her bedroom door tilted its figurative head and indicated that the outfit was acceptable. Am I really doing this? she asked herself. Any minute now I'm just gonna wake up and curse my alarm clock and wonder how I'm going to do my hair today.

No such luck. She slipped her favorite boots back on and headed into the kitchen to decide which frozen delicacy would have the privilege of gracing her dinner table that evening.

Riley had never been so conflicted in his entire life.

"I can't wear a sweater," he mumbled to himself. "She'll think I'm stuffy. If I wear a button-down…she'll still think I'm stuffy. A tee-shirt's too casual." He paced around his bedroom. A speck of disbelief crept into his flustered mind. Buffy was going to be at his apartment in less than fifteen minutes. She would be here, in this very place, live and in color. There was only one thought that occupied his mind from that point forward.

Vomiting.

"He thinks I let him go."

"Do you wish you hadn't?"

Buffy walked slowly, casually, toward Riley's apartment building. The words reverberated in her mind, bouncing around like a tennis ball. Do I?

When Sam and Riley had showed up in Sunnydale almost four years ago, the first thing that had popped into Buffy's mind was _That could have been me_. Not necessarily a military agent in South America, but it could have been her and Riley fighting side by side instead of this strange, dark-haired woman that Buffy couldn't truly bring herself to despise. The thing that truly bothered her, though, was that he was so…grown up.

Buffy wished she could have been there to watch it happen. To watch Riley become this utterly arresting, amazing person. "I missed it," she said to herself.

Arriving at the door to the apartment complex, she swallowed hard and passed through the revolving door.

Riley met her on the ground floor and escorted her into the elevator. He pressed the button for the fourth floor. "I see you found your way back all right."

"Yup. Those street signs aren't just there for decoration after all." She smiled at him. Tried to keep things as casual as possible. "So what urgent deadly matter brings you back to SoCal? Because if it's another Easter egg hunt, you could have just e-mailed."

He grinned. "Something even more menacing. Civilian life." The doors opened and he led her down the hall to his apartment. Unlocking the door, he held it for her as she slipped inside.

"So…civilian life? I never thought you'd lower yourself to our meager level of existence," she drawled, expecting a messy but warm, comfortable niche. Then she swept her eyes across the modest, painfully clean living room. This place was not where the Riley she remembered lived. No photographs. No college souvenirs. Lots of stainless steel, glass, leather…but nothing that spoke of a living, breathing human being. A robot could decorate with more sentiment than this. Buffy's eyes were wide.

Riley shrugged apologetically. "It's not exactly the lap of luxury, I know. But I don't intend on getting settled in here. Just passing through until I find something permanent."

Buffy whirled around and faced him. "You're…I mean…of course." She smiled sheepishly. "What does L.A. have that Iowa boy could want?" Her eyes met his.

They both drew in a breath and unconsciously held it. Staring at each other. The tension escalated like a wild crescendo. Guilt, longing, frustration, regret – it all came sailing back like it was yesterday. Riley swallowed hard and spoke first. "Yeah. Really miss those cornfields." The muscles in his jaw tightened. He suddenly broke away. "Do you want something to drink? As part of my severance package the government has graciously afforded me running water. Hot _and_ cold."

Buffy smiled - though somewhat forced, it was an honest smile. "Doesn't get much better than that." She perched on the edge of the immaculate glass dining table and watched Riley dump a few ice cubes into two glasses and fill them with water. He handed a glass to her and she sipped it casually. "I've seen worse. I've _lived_ in worse."

Riley chuckled cynically. "You're not kidding. I was one of the luckier ones. A bunch of guys got stuck in a less-crowded wing of a nursing home, and I'll tell you, that one got pretty ugly before it got better."

"I'll bet." She crossed into the living room and looked out the window. "Great view of the Gap billboard you got here. If I ever need to know exactly which primary-color turtleneck is in season, this is the first place I'm coming."

"How is everyone? Xander, and Willow? Isn't Dawn in college now?"

Could there have been a more painful question he could have asked? "Willow's working on her physics doctorate at UCLA. She really likes it, which is totally not a surprise. When she got her master's she was like, 'This should have been more work! I feel cheated!' And Dawn's going to San Diego for oceanography, believe it or not. She tried to convince me to adopt a squid over the summer so she could finally have a real pet. God help us if she ever gets a yearning for nuclear science." She talked so fast she was surprised she still had a jaw when she stopped.

Riley set down his glass and crossed his arms expectantly. "I see. Well, that's two out of three."

Buffy took a deep breath. "Xander's dead."

His expression grew into shock. "What?"

"Th-there was a construction accident." Her eyes focused elsewhere but found nowhere comfortable to rest.

Through his astonishment he managed to look annoyed. "Buffy, you don't have to lie to me about this stuff. I haven't forgotten about all the things that come out after dark around here-"

"No," she interrupted. "It really was a construction accident. He was working on a new apartment building a few blocks from here, and there was an earthquake. A little one. But it was enough to bring down half the building and bury a couple guys under it." Her eyes, huge and dark and greener than Riley remembered, stared at some random place behind him. "He died trying to pull them out."

Riley let out a long breath. "Wow." Even through the devastating news, he couldn't help but lose himself in her hair, her skin, the way she smelled. Still so beautiful it hurt to look at her. "I'm so sorry, I can't-"

"Don't." She held up a hand and smiled apologetically. "Thank you, but don't. I can't hear it anymore."

"Right. Sorry."

"So, where's your lovely wife? Last time I saw you two you were Bonnie-and-Clyde-ing your way through South America."

"Ah." Riley turned from her and walked over to the kitchen sink. He dumped out the contents of the glass, reached into a cupboard over the sink, and retrieved a half-full bottle of whiskey. "Funny you should ask." He then proceeded to fill his glass to the brim. "Care for some?"

Buffy shook her head, fascinated in a suspicious, hopeful, shameful way.

"Right after we left Sunnydale that last time, we flew to Nepal, then to Indonesia. Got a little messy there." He looked down and paused. "I haven't spoken to her since then."

Buffy's face softened. "She-she left you? You left her?" Her eyes widened with recognition. "Is she…dead?"

"No body. Well, at least, not all of it." He took a huge gulp of his whiskey. "We found an elbow a few days after the attack. But if she's alive, it's been three years, and nothing. No, 'Hi, honey, I've been adopted by a pack of poisonous saliva demons. Having a hell of a time, wish you were here.'" He seemed to age about thirty years in the brief silence following those words. "I stayed in the area until a couple months ago, just searching. Thinking maybe if I turned the corner at the right time she'd be there, sitting in a little hut, weaving baskets or something. Although I guess that would be kinda hard with only one arm." He finished the rest of his drink in one long chug. "After all that, I decided to take some time off and regroup a bit. Also known as 'getting the hell out of dodge.'" Gesturing to the practically antiseptic apartment, he muttered, "You can probably tell how well that's going."

"At the risk of being really redundant…I'm sorry." In all Buffy's experience with death, she had yet to come up with a consolation phrase that actually meant something. What facet of human language could truly epitomize the surreal, angry, devastating realization that what was once a person was now only a corporeal assembly of organic compounds? A body was nothing. Arms, legs, noses, fingers…they had nothing to do with what made them human. A mind. A soul. With pet peeves and emotions and quirks that would never show themselves again.

"Thanks," he graciously replied. Must change topic. Now. He pasted a smile on his face and cheerfully asked, "So, the Hellmouth decided to set up shop in LA? Let me guess – it got jealous of all the other demonic hot spots and moved to the big city to make a name for itself."

Buffy let out a long sigh and smiled. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

You got any more of that Jack?"

Three hours and significant amount of inebriation later, Buffy was sprawled leisurely on one end of Riley's couch, and Riley on the other, laughing and joking about each other's adventures. They had since abandoned cups altogether and took turns drinking straight from the bottle. "I swear, Buffy, this thing made rotting fish smell like the Garden of Eden. I couldn't take it for more than a few seconds without dry-heaving. And you can't even imagine the wailing. It was like a cross between a Siren and a banshee. Maybe a laryngitic opera singer on a good day."

Buffy raised her eyebrows, amused. "Gee, when did babysitting fall under the heading of 'Top-Secret Government Operations?'"

"You laugh now, but the diapers, oh my God, the diapers. If that was anywhere in the job description I would've gladly stayed in Sunnydale, Graham's kid or not." Thanks in part to the alcohol, he was talking too much – it was evident in the slightly uncomfortable expression on Buffy's face. They had skillfully maneuvered their conversation to avoid the obvious, but sooner or later something was bound to slip out.

Buffy glanced at her watch. It was nearly ten (or so her poor drunk eyeballs were telling her), and she had to be in the station by nine the next morning. The whiskey had really gone to her head – this one was going to be one of those rip-roaring, hydrogen-bomb hangovers that burrowed into your brain like a rabbit. Now was as good as a time for an exit. That, and she knew that if she didn't get going soon, something was going to be said that shouldn't, and avoiding that was definitely on her to-do list.

She suddenly realized that Riley was talking. "You know, being ordinary really isn't so bad. You learn to adjust." He smiled.

She nodded. "I guess. It's just…there was the almighty Slayer pedestal, and I'd been on it for so long that I thought I was on level ground like everybody else. And then, goodbye pedestal, hello stark realization that I am incredibly short for my age." He still had those eyes. God, those eyes…unconsciously, she inched towards him on the couch. Her foot knocked over the half-full glass of Jack and Coke on the coffee table, and the sticky drink spilled everywhere – the carpet, the couch, Buffy's pants. "Oh, my God. I am so sorry. Maybe it's time that Buffy and the alcohol wish each other well and say goodnight." She frantically scanned the room for napkins or a dishtowel.

"Don't worry about it," said Riley as he grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen and set about soaking up the liquid. He worked his way from the carpet up the front of the couch and eventually his path led him to Buffy's leg. Gulp. He paused, and stared at her for a moment before smiling apologetically and handing her the towel. "Uh, sorry. Didn't mean to…"

"No. No, it's fine. Look, you're kneeling in it." She gestured towards Riley's knee, which he had inadvertently placed in one of the wet spots on the carpet. They laughed lightly, no more than a breath, really, before Riley brought his eyes back to Buffy's. The connection was undeniable. Without thinking, he reached out and brushed his hand through her hair. Still so fine and silky. He rose and sat next to her on the couch, never breaking their eye contact.

Buffy was a whirl of emotion. She couldn't ignore her body aching, burning for contact. It screamed at her, shook her like a dog with a rabbit. Would it be so bad to give in…?

Without thinking, she rested her head on Riley's shoulder. She turned her face up towards him and it burst into her mind that he smelled exactly the same as she remembered, a mixture of soap, aftershave, and some unidentifiable cologne. She liked it. She liked it a lot. She leaned into him, feeling his breathing match with hers – slow, steady, but with a certain element of restraint.

His fingers trailed over her arm, feather-light, gossamer, almost a phantom touch. Totally amazed that a real person could be as beautiful as her at that exact moment. His mind reeled from the wild assault of her simply being so close to him. She shifted a bit and stared directly into his eyes. Riley felt as though every molecule of oxygen had been sucked from his lungs – were her eyes always so green? He swallowed hard, willing his heartbeat to quit pounding at his chest like a jackhammer.

How easy, how natural it would be to reach up and kiss him, hop up onto his lap and rip his shirt off, guide his hands to anywhere and everywhere she wanted. Run her hands through his hair and down his back, to caress and tease and rub. Unbuckle his pants, slide her hands down into them, and play with him until neither one could stand any more…

Stars and Stripes Forever?

The pair came crashing down from their reverie clumsily and more than a little regretfully with the obnoxious ringtone from Buffy's cell. Disgruntled, she grabbed it out of her purse and checked the caller ID. "The station. Great. They really don't seem to grasp the concept of nine-to-five." She smiled apologetically. "This was nice. Thanks for–"

"The pleasure was all mine," Riley interrupted. Although, judging by the way she nervously picked her clothes and slid into her leather jacket, she might have had a tiny share. "D-do you want me to walk you there? I think you might have had more to drink than I did, and who knows what-"

"Riley," she interjected. "It's only a few blocks away. Besides, think about who you're talking to. I might not be the only Slayer, but I still am one. There's got to be some kind of super Slayer sobering sense. Wow, say that one three times fast." Okay, so perhaps babbling was not the most effective manner by which to prove her sobriety.

Riley raised his eyebrows skeptically. Buffy glared at him. "I'll be fine," she assured him, as she slipped out the door.


End file.
